SWEET LIFE - A NEW CD BY JIM SPEAKE NOW AVAILABLE -
- AS ADVERTISED IN CABARET HOTLINE ONLINE
This recording had a long gestation, starting when Jim was born in Florence Alabama in1945. This was very close to the place where musical magic was to be made, the famous recording studios in Muscle Shoals. By coincidence, Percy Sledge was born in the same little town where his family and Jim lived, Leighton, Alabama. He had a major hit with his first recording in 1966, and the "Muscle Shoals Sound" was firmly established. Jim Speake had music in his life from an early age, because he sang along with his mother when she played the piano and sang. A track of his first recording session at four, can be found on Jim's first CD, "Jim Speake Sings My Generation." It was expected that he would go into the family business of farming. Instead, when Speake went to college, he earned degrees in Business Administration, University of Alabama and ultimately Landscape Architecture, University of Georgia. If he had followed my heart, he would have studied music. That was a road Jim did not take seriously until he moved to New York City in 2000. There, while studying acting and voice, Jim was lucky enough to meet some key people who have been vital to his development as a singer. At H.B. Studio, he met KT Sullivan. KT introduced Jim to Eric Michael Gillett. Eric Michael introduced him to Patrick DeGennaro. Patrick introduced him to Lennie Watts and Steven Ray Watkins. 2015 marked the tenth anniversary of his collaboration with these two talented men. Most of the arrangements on this recording were developed working with this same team. It is not a stretch to say thatSpeake would not have made this recording had he not met Lennie and Steven. He especially appreciates Lennie's support through this journey and also introducing him to Paul Rolnick.
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